A wide variety of means exist for communication between users. For example, a user may conduct phone calls via a home phone, work phone, and mobile phone. In addition, users may also communicate using devices such as PC's, PDA's, pagers, etc. using manners of communicating such as email and instant messaging.
Unfortunately, managing such a wide variety of communication means can be difficult. In particular, as a user changes location, communication with the user may vary. For example, while on travel, it may only be possible to reach a user by mobile phone. However, the user may best be reached by email while at work. Also, the user may wish to implement various rules for receiving and controlling communications. For example, to be reached at home, the user may want the home phone to ring three times before forwarding the call to a mobile phone. As another example, the user may wish to be paged each time an email is received from a particular person while away from the office.
A user may also wish to treat an incoming phone call differently dependent on the identity of the caller. For example, if a user receives a call from a caller to whom the user does not want to speak at the moment, the user may want to send that call directly to voice mail. Also, if a user receives a call from a number that displays no caller ID information or that the user otherwise does not recognize, the user may wish to somehow specially treat the call, because the caller is a potential telemarketer.
Current call management systems make it possible for a user to receive notification of a call on a communications device, and then to either take the call or divert it to voice mail to the user's discretion. Current call management systems also make it possible to automatically intercept and specially treat a call that displays no caller ID information. Current call management systems, however, do not enable a user to perform other functions as a call is being received, such as initiating a collaboration session with the calling party.